


You've Got Mail

by Hollandoodle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abbreviated Slow Burn, F/M, Letters, Message in a bottle, Texting, penpal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-24 00:43:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16170101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollandoodle/pseuds/Hollandoodle
Summary: Sansa finds a message in a bottle on the beach from a boy still hopeful for a better life. What she finds when she contacts the boy changes the course of her life.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

With the sand between her toes and enough light from the setting sun to read by, Sansa sat on the empty beach with the old soda bottle in her hands as Lady romped and played in the bubbling surf. The waves lapped at her paws as the husky pounced and trotted, whirled and barked at whatever small playthings she happened to find. 

Not a soul was on the beach with them so Lady’s leash lay beside Sansa’s hip on sand, warm from the summer sun, the the evening breeze carrying with it the smell of the sea as it tousled her coppery ponytail.

Sansa and Lady had been out for her nightly stroll when Sansa noticed the bottle sticking out of the sand, bottom up. Irritated immediately at the litterbugs whose actions sully the beautiful east coast shoreline, she bent to pick it up, intent on holding onto it until they returned to the parking lot and she could deposit it in the trash can. It was something she did often--taking seriously the mantra  _ “Leave the world a better place than you found it.” _ On weekdays following a holiday weekend she would often strap a bag to her belt loop, knowing the abandoned party sites were often ripe with refuse, cans, bottles, and plastic that hadn’t already blown away. She counted it a job well done when on those days she filled her bag and did the planet a favor.

But as she peered into this bottle she realized it wasn’t empty but rather held a rolled up piece of paper. Knowing instantly what it was she held, Sansa glanced up to ensure Lady’s whereabouts were not too far from her before plopping down and digging her toes into the cool, damp sand.

The cork was shoved deep into the neck of the bottle but with just enough sticking out that she was able to grip it and pull, its release sounding with a loud  _ pop! _ before she dropped it onto her lap.

The air inside could have been decades old, or she could have just found a bottle left by some kids from this past weekend when she had eschewed the beach in favor of more quite haunts, like the hiking trail system in the hills behind her condo. But either away, she couldn’t ignore the thrill of discovery as she dug her finger into the blue toned glass and squeezed the rolled up paper as she pulled.

It slid out of the thin neck where she was able to grasp the corner and carefully pulled the white scroll out of the bottle. Sansa couldn’t help her reaction--her heart beat a staccato rhythm in her chest as she wondered at this small prize the universe had given her. After all, how often as a child on the coast did one dream of finding a message in a bottle?

Nothing exciting ever happened to her. Or at least that’s how Sansa had always felt. Growing up the oldest daughter in a family with seven kids--two of whom were adopted--she had been just one of many. Good kid, smart student, studious college grad; she had developed into the stereotypical nice young woman her parents gushed over to their friends. She was happy, successful in her new teaching job, and looking forward to the following school year when she could pursue being hired on by one of the schools as a full time elementary school teacher.

But… life often struck her as being slightly boring. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her condo, or her job, or Lady, or her family. No, all of those things enriched her life and made her very happy.

It’s just that she didn’t have any level of excitement in her life, so finding a message in a bottle was giving her a measure of exhilaration she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Lady barked and Sansa glanced up to see the husky face down in a hole of her own making, barking at whatever it was she was uncovering with furious swipes of her front paws. Figuring the dog was occupied, Sansa set about unravelling the tightly rolled paper and examining its contents.

The handwriting was a bit sloppy, blocky enough to make her think it was written by a child. Her thoughts were confirmed when she began to read.

> _ To whomever finds this letter: _
> 
> _ My name is Sandor Clegane. I just moved to King’s Landing, and I’m 12 years old. I am looking for a pen pal. If you find this, please reply and I will write you back.  _
> 
> _ Sandor Clegane _

King’s Landing! There was an address that Sansa was surprised to find she was somewhat familiar with, on the other side of town. But the line listed a single address, whereas Sansa knew that area had years ago been turned into apartment complexes by Joffrey’s family.

She turned the paper over, looking for a date but didn’t see one. But when she flipped it back to look at the letter she saw her thumb had been covering the date in the upper corner, and--

Twenty four years ago! A whoosh of breath left her as she realized she was holding a bottle a boy had thrown into the ocean over two decades past. 

Letting the letter rest on the bottle still in her lap, Sansa looked out at the setting sun and thought about the boy who had written the letter. He would be thirty-six years old now, ten years older than Sansa. She imagined a young man full of hope and wonder writing the note, putting it in the bottle, squishing the cork down far enough that no water would get in the wine bottle, and then tossing it into the ocean, youthful excitement on his face. Perhaps he reeled back his arm behind his head and swung as hard as he could, hoping the bottle would splash into the surf far enough out from the shore that it would be carried to a faraway land. There, she imagined, it would fall into the hands of some other young person and the boy would get the pen pal he desired.

But that obviously hadn’t happened, since it was now twenty-four years later and Sansa was the one who had found the bottle; Sansa who opened it and read the letter that hadn’t been exposed to the air for more than two decades.

Thinking on it now, she suddenly felt a rush of sadness for the boy whose dream was never realized. He may have waited, checking the mailbox often throughout that summer and the next, and the next, only to never find a letter inside asking him if he wanted to be pen pals.

And knowing what young kids were like, Sansa wondered how this experience had shaped the little boy into the man he was today.

Because… surely he was still alive?

“Lady!”

Grasping the bottle in one hand, and the cork, note and leash in the other, she rose, brushing the sand off her butt with the backs of her hands. 

There was no time like the present to send off a letter, and to see if it could reach the boy who had requested a friend. Perhaps someone still lived at the address listed? Sansa pictured a boy waiting, lonely and patient, by an empty mailbox, reading through every envelope the mail man dropped off and being disappointed day after day.

Then she pictured a grown man, smiling when he found her letter, knowing that the bottle had indeed been found and someone out there cared enough to respond.

She hooked the leash on Lady’s collar and began to formulate the letter in her mind as she walked them back to her car.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

“Hey, Sandor!”

Sandor turned just before he got to the elevator that would bring him up to his apartment at Lannister Apartment Complex, Building B. Samwell Tarley was waving him down, the round, portly man performing a shuffling jog to catch up to him, a packet of mail held in his chubby hand.

Sandor stood, his patience waning as he waited for Samwell to catch his breath as he thrust the packet up towards Sandor’s chest. Hair curled and stuck, wet with sweat, to the shorter man’s forehead. 

“Sandor… Here… You’ve got mail...” 

Samwell took a couple deep breaths as Sandor glanced down at the stack of mail, knowing the majority of it was just junk mail. The magazine offers and ads for dog medications never ended, now that he had signed up for a dog health newsletter. Big mistake, but lesson learned.

“I have a mailbox, Sam,” Sandor said--unnecessarily, he thought. Sam was the mailman, as the large messenger bag strapped across his chest proudly displayed. 

“Yes, I know, but, uh--” Samwell coughed, shook his head, and coughed again. He needed to lay off the snacks all the old ladies in the building left him at the front desk. 

After a moment he continued, “But there’s a letter in there addressed to you with the incorrect address on it, so I was hoping I’d see you. I would have left it at the desk had I not, since I know Mrs. Tyrell had told me last week she was going to be leaving a tray of brownies for me anyway.” He gave such a sheepish grin that Sandor almost rolled his eyes.

Sandor looked from the letters back up to Sam’s face. He wasn’t a talker, but he saw that Sam was waiting for something, eyebrows lifted and those small, beady eyes hopeful that this was the time he could draw Sandor into conversation.

No. Sandor just wanted to get home, bring Stranger out for a walk, and return home for dinner. He worked six days every week and just wanted quiet time at the end of the day.

“Thanks,” he said, and he turned his back on Sam as he returned to the elevator.

The stack of mail was tossed onto the small dining table in his apartment, Stranger given a few scratches to his head in greeting, and the leash hooked to the black shepard’s collar on their way out the door. The letter sat forgotten as they went on their walk, all that evening, and all the following day.

It wasn’t until Sandor returned from walking Stranger three days later that he took the new stack of mail from his mailbox and sat at the table to go through it all.

The pile to his left grew and grew--junk that needed to be thrown away, unread. The spot to his right was always where he put anything that needed to be read, and on this day it remained empty.

Until he reached the last letter in the stack, the one that Sam must have mentioned days ago when he had flagged Sandor down with the stack of letters.

It was addressed to him, but confoundingly, to the address of his family home that had once stood on the land this complex had been built upon. Nearly two decades prior they had been bought out by the Lannisters and had moved into a temporary apartment across town while the massive buildings were constructed. Then, when applications were being accepted and the invitation had been extended to the Clegane family to move back into an apartment on one of the upper floors at a severely discounted rate, all who was left was Sandor--with Gregor in jail somewhere, their mother and sister dead, and their father on his way out of this world after suffering a major heart attack.

To see the address of that long-ago house that had held what had appeared on the outside to be a happy family home--but that on the inside was in truth nothing but a coffin of unhappy people who didn’t like each other--shocked Sandor enough that Stranger sensed something was amiss and came to rest his head on Sandor’s long thigh. With an absent minded scratch to the dog’s pointed ears, Sandor set about opening the white envelope, noting as he did the flowery return address label of someone named Sansa Stark.

When he began to read, he didn’t know whether to laugh or be irritated.

> _ Hello Sandor, _
> 
> _ My name is Sansa Stark. I found your bottle and your note on the beach outside of King’s Landing today and wanted to write you back.  _
> 
> _ I’ll be your pen pal, if you’re still interested. _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

She signed her name with a heart. Sandor  _ did _ roll his eyes at that.

But who was she? And why would she think that a letter he’d thrown into the damned ocean twenty-four fucking years ago would still hold any weight today?

It angered him that in writing to him she was dredging up memories from a time in his life that he would rather just forget. His parents marriage had been crumbling, his brother had jump started his life of crime, and with the fresh scars Gregor had given him just a handful of years prior, Sandor had been a lonely preteen desperate for someone to talk to, with no real avenues of meeting anyone.

Thus, the message in the bottle was his last ditch effort to find a friend, and without a response he had given up all hope. It had been a turning point in his life, since two years later he shot up like a redwood, gained fifty pounds of muscle just a few years after that, and graduated school after his father died, leaving Sandor with still viable plans to move into this apartment.

Working security at the apartment building enabled him to stay solitary, to have a reason to keep up with that sudden arrival of teenage muscle mass, and to enjoy long term gainful employment. Adding Stranger to his life had been just enough a couple years ago to keep him from acknowledging how damned lonely he was.

And now this girl--woman, whatever she was--was writing to him. And aye, he remembered what he had written in that blasted letter. So it was just a minute after reading hers that he dragged out a blank sheet of paper, pen, envelope and stamp.

> _ Don’t need a pen pal. Thanks for letting me know you found the bottle. _
> 
> _ Sandor _

He addressed the envelope, put on the stamp, and set it aside, figuring he’d mail it on his way to work in the morning.

Damned fate. The bottle could have stayed lost, for all he cared anymore about it. It had been a fool’s errand, the day he’d tucked the note inside, sealed it, and thrown it into the curling waves of Blackwater Bay. He remembered the sun had been bright, the air crisp and his mind full of a vague hope that somehow someone would find his letter--find  _ him _ \--and rescue him from his family life.

_ Like a twice damned damsel in fucking distress _ , he thought, anger causing his heart to trip in his chest. 

Nay, he didn’t need a fucking pen pal.

But he added the corrected return address to the envelope because… well, because it was the right fucking thing to do.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

“Don’t need a pen pal?” Sansa snorted, then looked up to see if anyone outside her building was watching her react to the letter she held in her hand. But no one was around, thank goodness, and she tucked the paper back into the envelope and into her back pocket.

Today was blustery cold compared to the day before, when the pleasant weather of the weekend had stuck around to make for a very pleasant Monday. But it was days like today that made Sansa glad for Lady.

Without her husky she would be inside, likely curled up on the couch with a book or papers from class that needed grading. She wouldn’t be out getting exercise, nor would she have checked her mail today, so she wouldn’t have found the short letter addressed to her in handwriting remarkably similar to that of the message she had found in the bottle.

_ Don’t need a pen pal _ . She mulled over his words, thankful that he at least had had the decency to reply.

Lady was doing her usual thing--smelling every bush and pulling on Sansa’s leash so that every once in a while a quick jog was required lest the dog pull Sansa right off her feet. But despite the weather, there were a handful of beach goers still out, even at this time late in the evening, and Lady was on high alert.

_ He thanked me for letting him know _ , she thought now, but her mind wandered back to the words that had been on the note in the bottle.  _ “I am looking for a penpal… please reply…” _ If he hadn’t wanted someone to reply than he shouldn’t have responded.

There were barking dogs in the distance and Sansa saw that further down the beach someone had two dogs about Lady’s size off their leashes, and they were investigating a dog being walked by an older couple. Tails were wagging stiffly, ears perked, and there seemed to be a hint of tension in the dog's body language.

Resolving to finish with Lady’s business quickly and return to the condo, Sansa turned in the opposite direction and walked away from the impromptu doggie introductions.

Thinking back to the original message, if this Sandor Clegane hadn’t wanted a pen pal he should have written something like,  _ “My name is Sandor Clegane… I’m 12… Have a great day.” _ That he specifically requested a note in return, and had included his address, indicated a twelve year old boy who wanted to find a friend through this exciting means of random communication. It spoke to Sansa’s heart, seeing as how she was currently working in a class with fourth graders who were just two years younger than Sandor was when he wrote the note. Just thinking of the hopeful light in some of the boys’ faces, and how kids at that age just wanted to be included and to have fun and to have friends, made part of her own heart ache for the boy who had resorted to an anonymous message in a bottle to find a friend.

Sansa was shaken from her thoughts by the barking that had come closer, and when she turned she saw that the two unleashed dogs had travelled about half of the distance between her and their masters, which made her a bit nervous. Lady, too, had noticed and appeared agitated, dancing around Sansa’s legs although not quite wanting to bolt and not wanting to rush to the two dogs to introduce herself. Sansa turned away from the water and resolved to find a way off the beach right then, hopeful that doing so would avoid confrontation between not only these two dogs and Lady, but between her and the two irresponsible owners who even now were picking up their paces in an attempt to catch up to their unrestrained dogs.

Despite the incoming canines who appeared to have picked up on Lady’s scent, Sansa smiled at the reply she began to compose in her mind, knowing that she wasn’t going to let this drop. Somewhere inside the man there must be parts of that boy left over, no matter what the last quarter century had done to him, or the things he’d experienced in that time frame. 

He might say he didn’t want a pen pal, but he  _ had _ replied, and he  _ had _ included an address that she knew must be the correct one. 6263 Joanna Avenue #B18. An apartment in those big Lannister developments, was what she pictured.

_ Oh, yes _ . He was getting a reply.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ I know you may not need a penpal NOW, but what drove you to request one THEN? _
> 
> _ Would you like the bottle and the note back? If you have kids, it would be a fun keepsake to pass down. Twenty-four years is a long time. _
> 
> _ I’m sorry for the delay in my reply (even though I’m sure you didn't expect one). My dog was assaulted a week ago on the beach by Blackwater Bay, and I’ve been told by the vet that I need to spend the next month waiting to see if she’s going to have puppies. _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

Sandor read the note again as he sat at his desk, the row of security monitors spread out before him not displaying any movement.

So she had a dog. That meant she could be anywhere from late teens to perhaps octogenarian, if she was walking said dog on the beach.

_ Well, that narrows it down _ , he thought dryly.

Though he wasn’t exactly sure why he was speculating her age. 

His curiosity was piqued, yes, but it wasn’t like they were going to be exchanging phone numbers. If he  _ really _ wanted to know he could use his security connections to find out who she was, but since he had never been the type of person to use such means and to circumvent moral behavior, he chose not to. Best leave it to fate how deep Sandor would go with this.

But then he snorted softly to himself, realizing how absurd that sounded. When he said he didn’t need a pen pal, what he meant to say was he didn’t  _ want _ a penpal.

He was pretty sure the reply he scratched out on a yellow notepad said as much. 

> _ Sansa, _
> 
> _ Spay your dog. _
> 
> _ No kids.  _
> 
> _ I asked for a penpal because I was 12. I’m pretty sure that’s what kids do. Not adults. _
> 
> _ Sandor _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Grump. Sansa wasn’t sure she wanted to continue corresponding with this Sandor Clegane. He seemed entirely too terse to carry on a snail mail conversation. 

Even so, something niggled at the back of her mind--a lack of excitement in her life, for one, but also a bit of exasperation that he wasn’t even attempting to be polite in his replies. 

So she found herself sitting on her couch one night, notebook in hand, poised and ready to write her reply.

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ Lady is not spayed because she is a husky and if the right boy husky ever came along, I might want a puppy, or two or three. I love dogs, and am perfectly capable of raising a whole house full of them. Someday I might even want a house full of kids. _
> 
> _ And yes, adults do occasionally enjoy penpals. Haven’t you ever heard of Friends Beyond The Wall? Perfect example. _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

With a satisfied smirk she folded it and put it into the waiting envelope. Tomorrow morning she would drop it in a mailbox on her way to the elementary school, and she thought she might take Lady to the trail system that explored the hills and valleys behind the University of King’s Landing, rather than risk being set upon by the horny male dogs they had encountered before.

Lady strolled over and laid her head on Sansa’s knee, looking up into her owner’s face with so much love and adoration that Sansa smiled at the thought of a house full of little Lady puppies.

As her mind shifted to the thought of a house full of kids, her smile widened, imagining that having both--kids  _ and _ puppies--would likely be a dream come true.

Well, at least she had control over the one. She wasn’t in a hurry to find a man willing to give her the sun and the moon and kids. Someday, yes, when she decided to actively look for one. But for now she was happy where she was at. Slightly lonely, perhaps, but happy.

Happier than Sandor Clegane, it would seem.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

_ Well, that rules out octogenarians _ , Sandor thought as he read Sansa’s response. House full of kids? She needed to be of child-bearing age for that statement, and  _ “someday” _ ? 

Thirties. Maybe younger.

But before he deluded himself into thinking the woman on the other end of these letters was someone with whom he could become romantically involved, he dropped the note onto the kitchen table and walked into the bathroom.

There in the mirror was the truth of it. Scars. So many scars. He was an ugly fucker, for sure. Long hair that he rarely bothered to cut, falling just below his shoulders in a harsh curtain hiding ruined skin beneath. But in the glaring lights lined above his vanity, they were impossible to ignore. The scars obstructed the line of his beard, dragged down the corner of his eye, and obliterated any brow that he might have had on that side.

And on top of the hideous scarring, also staring back at him in the mirror was a brutish, grumpy fucker who scared little kids and parted crowds like the Red Sea. Sandor was a head over six feet, which meant he normally towered over even most men. And paired with his hair, his scars, and his trademark scowl, most people in general avoided him. His outward appearance was one thing that made him such a powerful asset in the security business.

No one wanted to fuck with Sandor Clegane.

Hell, he had probably aided in putting some of the men and women behind bars who were now part of the program Sansa mentioned.  _ Friends Beyond The Wall? _ More like,  _ Help Me Ignore The Fact That My Stupidity Landed Me In The Slammer. _

Giving himself one last grimacing glance in the mirror, he flicked off the light and answered Stranger’s whine stating it was time for dinner. After putting a hefty scoop of food in the dog bowl in the kitchen, Sandor sat at his table with a pen and paper, thinking about what he was going to write to her at the same time he was ignoring the voice in his head that told him to throw away her letters and forget she ever found that damned bottle.

Unfortunately, some strange part of him overruled all reason. It was the part that had never received a letter from a stranger, who wanted to chide her for not spaying her dog--even though Stranger was completely intact--to prevent unwanted puppies, and that fought the growing interest in this woman and why she found writing to him so fascinating. It was the part of him that was using her for entertainment, for that slight thrill when he opened his mailbox when he got home mid-morning from his night security job and found the same bland white envelope inside.

And it was likely the part of him that refused to acknowledge the lonely boy who still lived inside him, the boy who had thrown the bottle into the bay and right along with it his hopes and dreams. It was the boy who wondered if someday he would have a chance to be with someone about whom he would never fantasize escaping from.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa sat in her car in the school parking lot, oblivious to the wave of children and parents passing by as the school began to teem with life. It was Monday morning and, as with every other Monday, she knew the children would be full of energy coming off a lively weekend.

Sansa herself was revitalized with the walks she had begun taking Lady on, exploring the shorter trails behind the university as she slowly worked up Lady’s physical and behavioral stamina for the longer trails. And, if she wanted to admit it to herself, her own stamina as well. 

Facing a three mile hike wasn’t exactly a great motivator to get out of bed on a Saturday morning.

But she did it, and she was proud of herself and proud of Lady for being a great walking companion. Perhaps by the end of the month she would attempt to work in some jogs along the nicely manicured trails.

A honking horn brought her back to the present moment, and the letter she held in her hands. It had a decidedly morose feel to it, and Sansa didn’t quite know what to think about it.

> _ Sansa, _
> 
> _ Friends Beyond The Wall? Bad example. Those people are desperate. I am not, despite what I may have said at twelve years old. _
> 
> _ I have a dog and I manage to make him keep it in his pants while he’s around females. Maybe you need to hang out with different dogs. _
> 
> _ Never fancied having kids. Stranger is enough. I pick up his shit, keep him fed, and give him a scratch every now and then. And he doesn’t wear diapers. _
> 
> _ Why are you so intent on writing to me? _
> 
> _ Sandor _

It was later when her class was sitting down to eat their lunch and the full time teacher was in the lounge having her own break from the class that Sansa reread the note and took out a sheet of paper. 

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks. Why am I intent on writing to you? Perhaps because you insist on replying to all of my replies? For someone who doesn’t want a penpal, you surely have become an excellent one. _
> 
> _ Stranger - is that your dog? It’s a good thing he “keeps it in his pants.” Very respectful of the ladies. _
> 
> _ But yes, maybe I should hang out with different dogs. Or at least ones who are consistently leashed. Are you the leash type, sir? Or do you allow Stranger to run amok, much to the chagrin of the female dog population? _
> 
> _ You make children sound overrated. Haven’t you ever imagined yourself to be a father? _
> 
> _ I look forward to your reply! _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa’s reply was a lot snarkier than Sandor would have expected. It’s why he led his letter with a question.

> _ How old are you?? _
> 
> _ I answer your replies because they keep appearing in my mailbox. Rest assured, if they ceased, so would mine.  _
> 
> _ Stranger is my dog, a black shepard and a fairly large one despite being the runt of a litter. To allow him to run around without a leash would be akin to seeing the Stranger himself run up to you. Only the god wouldn’t lick you, and the dog would never stop licking. In that way, no, he is not respectful of the ladies. I am no “sir” but I insist my pet have manners while we are outside. _
> 
> _ As for being a father, I had an abysmal one who turned me off to the possibility. That, and I don’t date, which is why Stranger and I are a perfect fit. We can go for walks and live in our bachelor pad unhindered by females and their ways. It suits us both. _
> 
> _ Sandor _

When her reply showed up a week later, he split open the envelope in the elevator, not bothering to wait until he reached his apartment.

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ I am 26. How old are you? Just so you know, we are now penpals. _
> 
> _ Stranger sounds like a lovely dog. Uncontrollable kissing, in my opinion, is not a deal breaker when it comes to Lady’s canine friends. Other than your slightly blasphemous comparison, I imagine Stranger to be a handsome black dog with a lolling pink tongue. Very cute. _
> 
> _ Not a sir, but you insist on manners? Pardon me, but that sounds like a very admirable trait, one worthy of the title. The boneheads on the beach who allowed their dogs to run loose do not deserve the compliment. _
> 
> _ By the way, the vet assures me Lady is not pregnant. Crisis averted. _
> 
> _ I suppose bad fathers could make someone question the wisdom of pursuing a paternal path, but I wouldn’t sell yourself short. If it indeed ever crossed your mind, you are not your father, and I can NOT be the only person to have ever told you that. If we were our parents, I would be an anal retentive hoarder of antique salt and pepper shakers who organizes her children’s schedules similar to how a professional chess player maps out how a game will proceed. I love my mother, but I strive to not become her. You should do the same. _
> 
> _ But you never know. Your bachelor pad might benefit from a female’s touch, canine or human. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, and all that jazz.  _
> 
> _ Why don’t you date? _
> 
> _ Have you noticed how our notes are getting longer? _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sandor rocked back in his chair at his desk, absently scanning the row of monitors that always appeared blank. After reading Sansa’s last letter, he wondered what it would look like to see a young woman walking a husky suddenly appear in one of them.

He could no longer deny that she had gotten under his skin. Her wit and humor were increasing with every note, and she was saying things to him that, although sounded like common sense, were nevertheless refreshing to hear.

The yellow legal pad sat to the side, so he laid it in front of him and position his hand over it, pen poised and at the ready, thinking over what he knew of Sansa already.

Twenty-six. Husky named Lady. Proponent of manners and not selling oneself short, but freely asks questions that require a great deal of thinking upon answering.

With a huffed laugh and a shake of his head, he put pen to paper.

> _ Sansa,  _
> 
> _ I did notice the notes are getting longer. I’m 36 - neither old nor blind, although some days I do feel the former. Twenty-four years was a long time ago. I threw that bottle into the ocean when you were two. _
> 
> _ Stranger is blasphemous by nature, whether by his name alone or when I curse at him. He chewed up a book I was reading the other day while I slept. _
> 
> _ I still say you should have Lady spayed. If you are in an area where dogs are let loose, it is only a matter of time before you get your wish and have a house full of babies.  _
> 
> _ There are a multitude of reasons why I don’t date, which I won’t go into here. But suffice it to say, I work nights and prefer being alone. My interior decorating skills have come a long way since middle school. I may have wanted a penpal when I was 12, but I am content living in my bachelor pad with Stranger. _
> 
> _ You’re 26. Why are you not married with a passel of kids already? You seem like the dating type. _
> 
> _ Sandor _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ Why do I seem like the dating type? And I am not married with a passel of kids because 1) I never felt like my biological clock was going to tick its last tock before I noticed and I’d be happy having kids well into my thirties, and possibly my forties, if I so choose. 2) I spent eight years getting my degree and my Master’s in education, and have only thought of settling down recently. And 3) one needs a husband for settling down, kids, and happily ever after. I do not have the one, thus I do not have the others. _
> 
> _ What book was it that Stranger chewed? Perhaps he just has good taste. _
> 
> _ I still don’t see spaying Lady as a requirement. Rather, I have changed our venue for our daily walks. Instead of the beach at Blackwater Bay I drive a couple miles and go to the trail system at the university. It seems to be a whole different breed of dog walkers, and all of them are very nice and respectful.  _
> 
> _ Besides, it is a house full of HUMAN babies that I see myself having someday. Not necessarily just puppies. _
> 
> _ Working nights is not a huge hindrance to dating, FYI. You work while she sleeps. She works while you sleep. Problem solved. Your reason is null and void, sir. _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

Sansa signed her name and drew her little heart before folding the note and sliding it into the envelope. It would go out with the morning’s mail.

It had been several weeks since she’d first written to Sandor, and she found herself enjoying reading his responses, as few and far between as they were. It was a far cry from texting, which if the recipient was of a like mind, meant immediate gratification upon their reply. But she liked his hand written notes, perhaps even preferred them over texting, and was enjoying flexing her letter writing muscles since nearly every assignment she’d done in her last year of graduate school was done on one form of technology or another.

She reread over Sandor’s note, smiling when he stated he cursed at Stranger. Despite saying so, his observations on Stranger’s character and the way he spoke about his dog pointed to a more loving relationship than he let on. It was all connected in her mind--as though Sandor was a puzzle she needed to discover, taking the small pieces he dropped in his notes and turning them this way and that until they began to settle into a personification of the man himself. 

She had no idea what he looked like--although that wasn’t to say she didn’t have a curiosity about that particular aspect of him.

But he was a man who loved his dog, was still a bachelor at thirty-six years old, and obviously held a steady job. He insisted he didn’t date, which led her full circle back to what he looked like, because it wasn’t often that drop dead gorgeous men didn’t have women fawning over them. The recluses, of which Sandor made it sound like he was one, were normally men who looked like they dragged their knuckles as they exited their cave to join humankind whenever they wished to bathe or eat.

Theon, her adopted brother, for example. The man looked like he survived on rats and water, for all that he bothered to come out of hiding from the bedroom in the apartment he shared with Jon, her other cousin who had been adopted by their parents. 

Somehow the young man made decent money working at whatever he did in his little hovel of a bedroom, but when he made appearances at family gatherings he was all stringy hair and hollowed cheeks, looking more like a man who starved himself than the happily employed Theon she knew and loved.

Sansa didn’t get the impression that Sandor shared this with her brother, although curiosity dictated this other man occupy her thoughts at random times throughout the day.

That night she put his latest letter on the growing pile on her night stand. And when she slept, she dreamed of a faceless man with a big, black Shepard. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the wonderful compliments! You guys are awesome. Just awesome.
> 
> Also thanks to the wonderful, the talented, the one and only LadyCleganeofTheNorth, for being a superb beta and an even better friend. I say it time and again - you rock, Lady.
> 
> I meant to get this out on a every-two-days schedule but completely forgot about it yesterday. So I'll try to get the next chapter out on Sunday!

 

Sandor was glad he read her response while in the privacy of his apartment. It left only Stranger to give him an odd look when her last line caused him to laugh out loud -  _ “Working nights is not a huge hindrance to dating, FYI. You work while she sleeps. She works while you sleep. Problem solved. Your reason is null and void, sir.” _

And how long had it been since he'd done  _ that? _ He couldn't even remember. Seeing as how he had a slow night at work and Stranger hadn't chewed anything while Sandor was gone, and with Sansa’s letter waiting for him, he was in a surprisingly great mood and took out blank paper to reply right away.

> _ Sansa, _
> 
> _ You've got me there, with the work schedule. But don't count on me filling my dance card. Women in general don't see me as dating material, just one more of the plethora of reasons why I don't date. Hence why a house full of kids is likely out of the question.  _
> 
> _ What about you? Twenty-six is old enough for marriage, with or without college and graduate school. If I have a reason for not being married, yours must go deeper than school and husband. Biological clock be damned, those are becoming less and less relevant. Why don’t you date? _
> 
> _ Those trails sound like a good place to go. I might try them out with Stranger. _
> 
> _ He chewed up an autobiography from a guy who spent his life teaching concealed carry classes. It was a good book, but completely unreadable now. It earned Stranger a few curse words the other day. _
> 
> _ Sandor _
> 
> _ P.S. You seem the dating type because you sign your name with a heart.  _

A few days later he had his response:

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ I think I sign my name with a heart because I am a closet romantic. Whether that makes me dating material wouldn’t be for me to say. I suppose it would be up to the man who agrees to go on a date with me. _
> 
> _ As to why I really don’t date? You should see some of the guys my sister brings home. They would be enough to turn off any sane woman to the idea of dating. Obviously, my sister is not sane. And I suppose I would say yes to a date if it was requested, if it came from the right man. So far I’m not interested in dating my colleagues, nor college guys, nor my brother’s friends. Like I’ve said, being single is nice for now. _
> 
> _ Do you concealed carry? One of my brothers does, but he’s a police officer so it’s sort of ingrained on his psyche that he needs to carry even in his off time.  _
> 
> _ You should get Stranger one of those beehive toys that you can put treats inside, especially if he chews while you’re gone. It helped Lady - she has several toys to keep her occupied while I’m at work. _
> 
> _ You must know that I would ask you why you think women don’t see you as dating material. It sounds like there’s something about you that I would need to know if I were to truly understand that statement. Are you game to tell me? _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Two months. He had been writing back and forth to Sansa for two months. In the last couple of weeks their letters had not only lengthened, but had turned into a friendship of sorts that had been completely unexpected. There was more talk of her family, of being “fur parents” as she called it, and talk of their careers. He had told her about his security job, and she’d spoken of her position as a student teacher.

Though they spoke less about the fact that they were both single, Sandor found himself wanting more out of the whole penpal thing. Though it made him nervous to think of meeting her, he thought that perhaps texting, or a phone call might be a good way to start. They lived in the same city, after all, and it seemed that what Sansa had said all those weeks ago about the arrangement of his schedule was true--there were two hours of time between when he got off work and when she left for her job, and then several hours in the evening after she got off work where their schedules overlapped.

And if Sandor wanted to delve deeper into it, he knew if he went to bed earlier in the day and rose earlier in the evening, that would likely give them several hours to speak in the evening.

But thinking it and approaching her with that information were two different things.

He was ten years older than her, for one thing. Scarred, grumpy whenever he wasn’t writing to or thinking about her, and the confirmed bachelor. The thought that she might find him hideous enough to cut off contact made his heart clench, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk giving her his phone number. 

Seeing as how he had spent the better part of his life single, it’s not that he was worried about heartbreak, really…

Okay, yes, he  _ was _ worried about heartbreak, because for the first time in his adult life a woman was remaining in contact with him for longer than a one night stand or the length of time it took for him to pick up his clean laundry at the laundromat. And not only that, but she was  _ nice _ \--nice and funny and caring and thoughtful. He could imagine him asking her on a date, but that’s where his thoughts ended. 

The possibility that she would cut off contact with him made him sad and angry at the same time--sad because he didn't want to give up this budding friendship, and angry because he had been dealt this shit hand in life through no fault of his own, and he was the one who had to live with it.

So he didn’t offer his number to her, and they went on trading letters, the pile of white envelopes on his table growing until he finally found an empty box to put them in. He bought one of the toys she recommended for Stranger and was surprised to see she’d been right--the chewing all but stopped.

Then one day when her letter arrived, he slid his finger beneath the flap and opened it on his way to the elevator. He made quick work of flipping open the sheet of paper before reaching out for the button to summon the lift.

Then he froze, hand suspended at waist level, as he read her very short note.

> _ Sandor, _
> 
> _ Do you think we should exchange phone numbers? _
> 
> _ Sansa ♥ _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

It was brazen. It was bold. It was presumptuous. Sansa regretted mailing the letter almost instantly, and wished she could claw her way into the blue mailbox on the curb just down from the trailhead. But she knew it was impossible, and that her bravery had only lasted as long as it had taken to write the note, seal and stamp the envelope, and drop it off in the mailbox.

She went on her walk with Lady in the fading evening light and then returned to her empty condo, nerves so on edge that she found herself checking the mailbox despite having already done it that day. And of course, she had to remind herself, there would be no reply yet to her question.

But she checked it the next day, and the next, and the next. In fact, she checked it every day, twice a day, for an entire week before she realized that she may have scared him off. That in itself struck her as ironic, since she had been the one to pursue the penpal status--which he had accepted reluctantly--and she was now the one to pursue some type of phone contact--which it appeared he had rejected.

She struggled the following week to not let her disappointment take over her thoughts, but the longer she went checking the mailbox in the morning and every afternoon when she got home, only to find no letter from Sandor, the more dejected she became.

Until finally, on the morning after she had taken Lady for their first five mile hike through the university's trails, a single envelope appeared in her mailbox. Sansa didn’t bother stepping away from the bank of boxes before she tore into the envelope, ignoring the sudden racing of her heart as she realized she may have chased her new friend away.

As she read the note, Lady watched from where she sat, patiently waiting for the signal that they were going to head outside for their short morning walk.

> _ Sansa, _
> 
> _ I am not a very social man, but would be willing to give you my number.  _
> 
> _ My phone number is at the bottom of this note. You can text me. You know my schedule. _
> 
> _ Sandor _

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sandor knew his note was terse and not at all friendly, but he would be a liar if he told himself he wasn’t nervous, and he hated liars. 

He knew quite a bit about Sansa from her letters. He knew she had a husky and a horde of siblings, two parents who were still alive, and worked as an elementary school teacher, with aspirations to become a full time teacher in the fall.

She was funny, witty, nice, and she loved Lady. Those were all the important things. But what if she didn’t like him? As much as he didn’t want to admit it bothered him, he worried that texting might lead to talking, which might then lead to meeting; and would she take one look at him and flee? It wasn’t often that a woman looked past the hideous scars, and when they did, it was mainly because they were either expecting what was in his pants to match his size, or because they were bagging his groceries.

It had taken him almost two full weeks to reply to her note. He’d gone back and forth on whether attempting to enter into a friendship was worth it.

But Sansa seemed friendly enough that he was at least willing to try. After all, if it didn’t work out he could just resume the life he had lived before--reclusive, solitary, quiet, with no interruptions and no complications. Just him and Stranger, two bachelors growing old together. Accepting her request to exchange phone numbers wasn’t, after all, a declaration of more.

He was making an early dinner three nights later, just a grilled cheese and a bowl of tomato soup, when his phone dinged next to him on the counter. He didn’t recognize the number, which wasn't unusual since he was the supervisor and often the people who worked under him would text him with questions. And when they were as young as the men and women hired to work as Sandor’s employees, it was fairly often they showed up announcing they had a new phone number.

Come to think of it, many of them were Sansa’s age. He hoped she was more responsible than his immature coworkers.

The sandwich done, he put it on a plate and brought the bowl and plate to the table before retrieving his phone. As he sat he brought up the screen, coming to rest heavily on the chair as he read the message.

> 257-555-8358: Hello Sandor, this is Sansa. 

His food forgotten, Sandor felt a moment of panic before he texted her back, slowly putting his message into the phone.

> **Sandor: Hello**

He swallowed thickly. The one word was all he was able to say. He wasn’t prepared for this kind of contact.

> 257-555-8358: I suppose texting is what comes after letters.

Sandor tried to swallow but found it difficult, and reached for a drink but saw he hadn’t made one. Rising, he ran tap water into a glass and sat back at the table, reply at the ready.

> **Sandor: In what way?**
> 
> 257-555-8358: I mean, if we intend to meet one day I think it makes sense to treat it as a process. You are, after all, a reluctant penpal.
> 
> **Sandor: Reluctant but active, you mean**
> 
> 257-555-8358: lol yes, true. Did you feel I bullied you into being an active penpal?

He chuckled, and answered honestly.

> **Sandor: In a way, yes. But that doesn’t mean I regret it**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the reply she had expected, but a wholly more positive one.

> Sansa: That is good to hear. Why don’t you regret it?

It took him a while to reply, but when she did she smiled at his answer.

> **257-555-1147: The letters have been nice**
> 
> Sansa: I agree. Although I don’t mind the switch to digital, handwritten letters are a dying art. 
> 
> Sansa: And the content has been engaging, and enjoyable.
> 
> **257-555-1147: Are you critiquing my letters? You really are a teacher, aren't you**

Laughing, Sansa felt humorously chagrined and nodded, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.

> Sansa: I suppose I am. But isn’t it a nice critique? Would you rather receive an “F”?
> 
> **257-555-1147: I would give you a solid B+, so no, an F is not acceptable. I was certain I did better than that.**
> 
> Sansa: A- then. And I’ll have to figure out how to bring that B up to an A. Perhaps next time I send a letter I will write it in pink glitter gel ink?
> 
> **257-555-1147: Gods, please no. My eyes aren’t 26 anymore.**
> 
> Sansa: 36 is hardly old. 
> 
> **257-555-1147: That will get you an A**
> 
> Sansa: Even though it didn’t come in a letter?
> 
> **257-555-1147: Yes, even though it didn’t come in a letter.**

Their conversation continued on for another hour, much to Sansa’s surprise, and only ended when Sandor said he needed to get ready for work. But what surprised her even more was that when she texted him the next night at the same time, he responded; as with the next night, and the next, and the next.

For a man who claimed to be a social recluse, he held a pretty good string of conversation. So when it came time to suggest they move onto a phone call, she was surprised when he openly stated he was hesitant.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sandor didn’t know what to think about it, so he asked her if she minded if he thought about it. Though it sounded odd even to him, he just wasn’t convinced yet that it was a good idea. Her ready acceptance of his request put his mind at ease and they continued texting nightly.

A week later this acquaintance-turned-friendship budding between them came to a head when Sansa texted him a bit earlier than she normally did. By then he had put her name in his phone, and seeing it pop up on his screen as he was coming in from walking Stranger made his heart clench in the most suspicious way.

> Sansa: I need some advice
> 
> **Sandor: What kind?**
> 
> Sansa: Family advice
> 
> **Sandor: Then you’re writing to the wrong person.**
> 
> Sansa: lol It’s general advice. I think you might be able to handle it

He poured food into Stranger’s bowl and texted as he warmed himself up some dinner in the microwave.

> **Sandor: Okay, shoot.**
> 
> Sansa: My sister is pregnant

He knew enough about her family that he could see why this might cause some alarm. Sansa had told him her sister -- Anna or Anya or something like that -- was impulsive and strange, though she said these things in a warm way that spoke of her love for the younger woman. 

But with a handful of run-ins with the law and a revolving string of boyfriends, even a man who hadn’t had good examples of parents in his life, nor who had spent any significant portion of his years as a member of a cohesive family unit, could see why a pregnancy wasn’t exactly spectacular news when it came from a woman more known for her proficiency in alcoholic drink recipes than for her maternal instinct.

> **Sandor: Planned?**
> 
> Sansa: She says no
> 
> **Sandor: Is she going to keep it?**
> 
> Sansa: We might all be shocked and dumbfounded that she would let this happen but a Stark is a Stark. 
> 
> Sansa: We would never abandon either her or the baby

Sitting at his table, Sandor mulled over her words with something akin to wonder. 

Her family was the polar opposite of his. With him it had always been his mother, father, sister, brother. With Sansa it was “we” -- that she identified as an extension of a group of people bonded by more than just blood. The love she had for the members of her family extended deeper than that, into the realm of what happened to one, happened to all of them.

To say the thought that he had never experienced that sort of bond made him morose was a bit of an understatement. Once more attempting not to dwell on the injustice that was his life, Sandor took a big bite of microwaved burrito and picked up his phone.

> **Sandor: What advice are you seeking?**

Her response came after a couple minutes, and he wondered what she might be doing. Busy? Thinking of a response?

> Sansa: I don’t know what to say to her
> 
> **Sandor: Why not?**

Another pause, and he couldn’t help himself.

> **Sandor: What are you doing?**
> 
> Sansa: Trying to figure out how to say I’m jealous of her but that I love her and want to be supportive of her at the same time.
> 
> **Sandor: Well, you just said it.**
> 
> Sansa: It’s in text so technically not out loud.

Covering his mouth so he didn’t spray food while he laughed, Sandor marveled at the easy response that came to his mind and how he hadn’t expected to have a single thing to say to her that might help her. But as she texted, thoughts formed in his mind, questions and ideas, and he figured it was easy enough to let them flow through his fingers as he typed his response.

> **Sandor: Do you feel bad about this?**
> 
> Sansa: Being jealous that my baby sister is having a baby? That my adventure-loving, bar-hopping, rebellious high school drop out sister is about to live a dream I have been coveting for years?
> 
> Sansa: Pfft. Of course not.

She inserted an eye-rolling emoji for emphasis.

> **Sandor: But will that stop you from being supportive?**
> 
> Sansa: No
> 
> **Sandor: Will it stop you from hanging onto your dream?**
> 
> Sansa: Of course not
> 
> **Sandor: Then I don’t see the problem**
> 
> Sansa: What if I end up treating her differently because of these feelings?
> 
> **Sandor: You won’t treat her differently.**
> 
> Sansa: How do you know?
> 
> **Sandor: Because you love her**
> 
> Sansa: True
> 
> Sansa: And I kinda already love the baby
> 
> **Sandor: Who is the dad?**
> 
> **Sandor: Or does she not know?**
> 
> Sansa: I’m never going to show her that text lol
> 
> Sansa: It’s her on-again, off-again boyfriend Podrick
> 
> **Sandor: And is he being supportive?**
> 
> Sansa: So supportive it covers Arya like melted butterscotch and she wants nothing more than to scrape it off.
> 
> **Sandor: Is that how you would feel in her place?**

He wasn’t sure what made him ask that, but as soon as he hit the Send button he wished he hadn’t, mostly because he knew exactly why he asked it. The small, vague, hazy comparison that appeared at the back of his mind weighed what little he knew of Podrick’s reaction to becoming a father, to what Sandor himself might do if he were to hear the same news. And he wasn’t so sure it would be like melted butterscotch. Pop Rocks and worry, maybe, topped with a panic attack and a flight response on the side.

> Sansa: Having my baby daddy dote on me and bring me flowers and beg my dad for forgiveness, promising enduring faithfulness and loyalty to my entire family and attempting to anticipate my needs before I even know what they are?
> 
> **Sandor: Is Podrick doing all that?**

This time it was three eye-rolling emojis. Sandor guessed Podrick must have been a real piece of work.

> Sansa: I don’t know. I suppose. But I also suppose I have never actually imagined myself to be in that position. 
> 
> Sansa: You know… actually envisioning being pregnant and considering what the baby daddy would be doing. I always just skip to the house-full-of-kids image.
> 
> Sansa: But now that you mention it… I wouldn’t mind the flowers… and the loyalty.
> 
> **Sandor: So don’t begrudge her what she has, and treat her no different than you would have before she announced the pregnancy.**
> 
> Sansa: I’ll try.
> 
> Sansa: But I can’t promise anything
> 
> **Sandor: I think you can do it.**
> 
> Sansa: Why?
> 
> **Sandor: You’re persistent and you want to do the right thing**
> 
> **Sandor: So if you screw up you will apologize and do better**
> 
> Sansa: You think you know me so well, mister...
> 
> **Sandor: Am I right?**
> 
> Sansa: Yes
> 
> Sansa: You’re right.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

It did happen the way he said it would, with Sansa growing happier for Arya as the weeks went by, and focusing less on the jealousy she felt when the pregnancy had been announced. Though she should have known Sandor was going to be right -- over the next few months he proved not only to be intelligent and introspective, but inquisitive as well.

She was certain he had never been around a pregnant woman before, and their text conversations always included a retelling of one symptom of Arya's or another after he inquired as to how her sister's pregnancy was progressing. His comments were fairly transparent, though Sansa never pointed it out. He spoke like a man interested in the subject but unwilling to outright express his curiosity. Odd, she sometimes thought, for a man who claimed to have no interest in fatherhood.

After that initial text conversation where Sansa admitted to being jealous of Arya, their conversations turned more personal. It was easy speaking to someone she had never seen, someone she likely would never meet, about things that bothered her, and it seemed as though perhaps he thought the same.

She opened up to him about the pressure she had always felt being the “good” sister, and having to be perfect, to look perfect, and to get the best grades. She told him of graduating high school with a 4.2 grade point average, alongside several more of her favorite eye-rolling emojis. 

Though he congratulated her on it and said it was quite an accomplishment, it led him to tell her of his struggles in school but how they weren’t so much connected to his intellect, but rather to the situations he dealt with at home on a day to day basis. He told her something happened when he was a child and afterwards, his family life was basically non-existent, though he wasn’t open about what exactly had happened.

Their late night conversations often continued after she knew he was at work, since he said his security job was always slow and all he did was sit in front of a bank of monitors, usually reading the newspaper or news on his phone. 

It was late at night, one night, when he told her his struggles sometimes stemmed from unresolved physical abuse, and her heart broke for him. To be a child of any age and to have to endure physical abuse of any kind, and then to show a brave face at school and still concentrate on his work while knowing what would happen once he got home -- the thought was unconscionable to Sansa. She was positive her words of support and sympathy fell short, but she said them anyway.

Wondering if he was still weighed down by the past, she spoke of the things she had learned about this social recluse over the months they had been speaking -- of how supportive he was as a friend, of how helpful when she needed advice, and how he was apparently a fully functioning adult in society minus the social part. 

She told him no child deserved to be physically abused, and that if she had been around when he was a child she would have taken him under her wing at school -- had they been the same age, of course -- and made sure when he was at school at least, that he never would have felt alone.

The thanking text she received in return felt genuine, but she hoped he did in fact take her words to heart, because she was certain a fissure had developed in hers for this man she had never met.

The day Arya’s baby came she texted him nearly every hour, only after he insisted he would be available to her if she needed to talk, even if it was during a time when he was normally asleep. 

At 7:32am her water broke, and Sansa wrote she was heading to the hospital. Sandor replied she was going to be a fantastic aunt.

At 9:47am she texted that the nurse said Arya was pushing, and to expect baby Stark at any moment. Sandor asked her if she was excited and she replied, “Yes. Excited. Nervous. Omg, she’s pushing a tiny human out of her body and I don’t know if I should be proud, or horrified at the thought that someday I want to be in her position.”

Sandor responded with an emoji that didn’t have a mouth. She guessed that meant he didn’t have a reply, and would have laughed out loud had her entire family not been crowded into the same waiting room as her.

Then finally, at 12:11pm she texted him, “It’s a boy! I have a nephew!” And he responded with a congratulations and that he was happy everything had gone well.

> **Sandor: Are you sure you’re happy for her?**

It was obvious he was checking on her mental well being, so she told her parents she was going to step outside for some air and to call her when it was time to go see Arya and the baby.

Once there, she sat on a low concrete wall outside the hospital’s main entrance and smiled fondly down at her phone. It was just like Sandor to immediately delve deeply into Sansa’s psyche.

> Sansa: Yes, I truly am.
> 
> **Sandor: Any residual jealousy?**
> 
> Sansa: lol perhaps some, but not in the way you would think.
> 
> **Sandor: How so?**
> 
> Sansa: Shouldn’t you be sleeping?
> 
> **Sandor: I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. Sleep is overrated.**
> 
> Sansa: And if I keep you up texting for the next six hours before you go to work you won’t complain one bit?
> 
> **Sandor: Not a single word, on my honor**
> 
> Sansa: Verbally expressed, yes, but inner thoughts? I would be flayed alive.
> 
> **Sandor: Never**

Laughing softly, Sansa thought for a moment on his question before replying.

> Sansa: First off, yes, I am happy for her. Apparently Podrick is about to pee his pants from excitement that it’s a boy. Arya hadn’t wanted to find out, saying she was worried she would have a girl and the infant would grow into a miniature version of her.
> 
> **Sandor: That bad?**
> 
> Sansa: She said she doesn’t want a girl to do to her what she did to our mother. Mom has quite a few gray hairs that weren’t there before Arya started junior high.
> 
> **Sandor: Would you have wanted a boy?**

There was one of those questions that always made Sansa wonder about him -- the leading question that sounded more like an inquiry about the inner workings of a parent’s mind that Sandor’s apparent disdain for fatherhood refused to let him voice as an opinion. But that he was asking this of her meant that she was going to be totally honest, because she enjoyed that aspect of their friendship -- he never outright judged her on her little phone screen for anything she said.

> Sansa: Actually, no, not at first. I understand not being able to control my child’s gender, and even not being able to control how their personality develops to a point since they will be a unique person. But yes, I can see myself having a girl.
> 
> Sansa: Smaller like my father’s side of the family, red hair and blue eyes like my mother’s. Someone I can dress in pretty dresses and cuddle with during the night. My fantasies of being a mom have always at least started with the baby being a girl.
> 
> **Sandor: Where do you fit in with your family’s spectrum?**

Was that reaching? Sansa smiled cheekily at her phone. It almost sounded like he was asking her to describe herself.

> Sansa: Not short, in fact. A detail I haven’t always liked. I am quite tall. But yes, the red hair and blue eyes. When I have a daughter I would like for her to look like me.
> 
> **Sandor: I’m sure she will.**
> 
> Sansa: lol you can’t know that, and neither can I
> 
> **Sandor: Perhaps not. But it's okay to dream about it.**

A pang in her heart told her he might have been dreaming as well, but she didn’t say anything. After all, she didn’t actually know him, didn’t know what he looked like, didn’t know if he smiled when he was being vague or blinked when he was leaving something out of the conversation on purpose.

So she agreed with him, and then posed a question to him that she thought would turn the tables on him.

> Sansa: It is. What about you? Didn’t you ever imagine yourself having a boy? Perhaps one you could parent better than the parenting you received as a child?

There was a couple minutes where he didn’t reply and Sansa wondered if possibly she had gone too far. People walked back and forth in front of her, some entering the hospital, some exiting, but she saw none of it. She waited, hardly breathing when she realized she really wanted to know what he had to say in response.

When his answer came, so too did a phone call from her mom saying they were going to let visitors in to see Arya, Podrick and the baby one by one. As Sansa climbed the stairs back to the maternity floor, Sandor’s reply ricocheted through her mind like a bullet in a canyon.

> **Sandor: A girl. One who looks just like her mother.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love that you guys are enjoying this story so much. I'm glad it came together well, and that the relationship building between Sandor and Sansa is at least somewhat believable.
> 
> And that last text so many of you commented about? Suckers. I knew it would hook you.
> 
> Kidding. But seriously, it hooked me, too. Just picture a woman with a big yellow emoji head with heart eyes tapping away at the computer as I wrote that scene, and you'd know what I looked like.
> 
> <3

 

 

Sandor went back to that text conversation multiple times over the next few weeks, wondering about its meaning even though it was his own words. 

After all, he had parroted her words back to her --  _ A girl. One who looks just like her mother _ \-- knowing they sounded warm and fuzzy even to him; the least warm and fuzzy person he knew.

Did it say he was attracted to her? Preposterous, he tried to reason with himself late at night as he stared at monitors, knowing she was asleep. He knew a lot about her, but not a lot about  _ her _ \-- the woman herself; what made her tick, how she liked her coffee, whether she had dimples or smooth cheeks. He knew now that she was tall with red hair and blue eyes, which was certainly more than she knew about him.

And yet, those thoughts did nothing to dispel the uneasiness he felt at how often he wondered what she looked like, what she was like in person, whether she enjoyed their text conversations as much as he did. 

He was invested in this unwanted penpal friendship, when he had never intended for it to go past that first terse reply he sent her.

And damn it, it bothered him. Life was simple. He had Stranger. He had his job, his condo, his bank of unwanted memories and a future that looked as boring and predictable as his recent years. He was comfortable without constant human companionship, without the need to reach out verbally or physically to a woman.

Until, that is, Sansa wrote her damned letters and messed it all up. So when Stranger came down with a mysterious illness and that urge to reach out multiplied, it was to her he wrote, and to her from whom he sought comfort.

It was early, and he had just gotten off work, heading home to what he assumed would be a sleepy shepard and a warm bed. But what he found instead was blood on the floor and a massively distended stomach on his dog.

> **Sandor: Stranger is sick, I'm taking him to the emergency vet**

Sansa wrote back almost immediately. 

Sansa: omg! What happened?

He told her quickly via talk-to-text about the dogs stomach and the blood coming out of his penis, not taking the time to correct any typos that may have happened through autocorrect as he carried the heavy dog to the elevator.

> **Sandor: I'm on my way now, will text when we get there and I find anything out.**
> 
> Sansa: Okay, call me if you need anything. You both are in my thoughts. 

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> **Sandor: They say he might die tonight. He's heavily medicated, acute renal failure.**
> 
> **Sandor: I don't know what to do**
> 
> Sansa: omg Sandor, I'm so sorry! He's not very old, is he?
> 
> **Sandor: Five years, which is reaching middle age for a shepard. But they say it could be bad breeding**
> 
> Sansa: Keep me updated! Do you need anything? Prayers?
> 
> **Sandor: Hang on**

Sansa wasn't sure she could. After everything they had told each other about their dogs, Stranger was as real to her as if she saw him on a regular basis in real life. She knew the black beast of a dog was nothing more than a cuddling furball who appeared mean in a way his master approved. But she also knew he loved hamburgers and belly rubs and taking up two thirds of the couch with his head on Sandor's lap.

> **Sandor: They're telling me if he doesn't show signs of improvement by midday today then the best course of action would be to humanely euthanize him**
> 
> Sansa: Oh, Sandor. I'm so sorry.

Fighting back the tears that threatened to spill, Sansa sat up in her bed against the headboard and texted again.

She knew what she wanted to do. They had been talking for nearly a year, and this seemed as good a time as any to meet. More so, in fact, if her friend was in need of companionship in this trying time.

> Sansa: What emergency vet are you at? I'll come with coffee and we can talk. I don't think you should be alone
> 
> **Sandor: No, don't do that.**

His immediate reply was to be expected, but she pushed the idea anyway.

> Sansa: I want to. You shouldn’t be alone right now. What vet?
> 
> **Sandor: I don’t want you to come.**
> 
> **Sandor: I’m okay, really**

She didn’t understand. He wasn’t okay, as evidenced by the sheer magnitude of what Stranger was going through -- what Sandor himself must have been going through in that moment.

> Sansa: I don’t mind. Honestly. I’d like to be your friend right now.
> 
> **Sandor: I understand. I just have my reasons. I’ll let you know in a few hours how he’s doing.**

He might have understood, but she didn’t. But she supposed being a good friend included being respectful of his wishes.

> Sansa: Okay. You’ll call if you need anything? Please? My phone is on, text me as soon as you find out anything, okay?
> 
> **Sandor: I will. I promise.**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Try as he might, Sandor couldn’t get the word  _ coward _ out of his mind. 

He should have taken her up on her offer.

He wanted to… and yet he also didn’t. For the first time in a long time he had a friend; someone he could talk to, to share his concerns with, his accomplishments, and he didn’t want to ruin it by letting her find out he was a huge, scarred monster. 

Right now it was better for both of them if he remained faceless and she oblivious, just distant friends who could maintain their acquaintance over the airwaves between cell phone towers.

He tried to ignore the growing desire for the human contact he abhorred and instead focused on Stranger, whose harsh breathing Sandor couldn’t get out of his mind. 

He didn’t want to lose Stranger, and knew that as hard as it would be, there was a slim chance he would go out and find another dog. Even now, with Stranger’s fate in the hands of the after hours veterinarian, the prospect of losing his only companion was more of a fear threatening to crush his heart.

Any sane person would take the hand Sansa reached out with, but not Sandor.  _ Idiot _ , he thought. The faceless, shapeless red-haired stood before him in his mind, a hazy figure mocking him with her wholeheartedly given kindness.

But... Stranger. The dog had been the most important thing in Sandor’s life for years, and now with the threat of losing the big black shepard all but imminent, he didn’t want to think about other entanglements that might arise. 

So instead he sat in the waiting room, cup of shit-tasting coffee in hand that probably paled in comparison to what Sansa would have brought, worrying that he might lose one of the two friends he had. 

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa was baffled as to why Sandor would turn down her offer. Baffled, but with no choice other than to respect his decision. The only theory she could come up with was his social reclusiveness was more severe than she had originally thought.

So she waited, and shortly before her alarm was supposed to go off for work her phone dinged on her night stand, and she picked it up, her heart already jumping at the prospect of news from Sandor.

> **Sandor: He has improved, but not enough to be optimistic, the vet says**
> 
> Sansa: But improvement! That’s still good news!
> 
> **Sandor: It is, but the pace at which he improved didn’t impress the vet so he says to be cautious with our hope**
> 
> Sansa: My offer of coffee still stands. I think you could use someone right now, and you’re being stubborn.

She inserted an emoji with a lifted eyebrow for emphasis, mirroring the expression she herself wore as she typed out the text. Then she laughed when he replied.

> **Sandor: Stubborn is my middle name**
> 
> **Sandor: Thank you, but no. Don’t you have to get ready for work? I’ll text you as soon as they make me make a decision**
> 
> Sansa: Yes, I do. But I would always set aside time for a friend in need.
> 
> Sansa: Even if it meant skipping a shower and buying a sack lunch to have time for a cup of coffee with you
> 
> **Sandor: I appreciate the thought.**
> 
> Sansa: Pfft. Stubborn man.

The text came at lunch: Stranger’s condition was improving with medications, though he would have to be one them for quite some time to ward off a relapse. And he would have a standing prescription at the veterinarian’s pharmacy for any future flare ups, since it was likely this would be something he would deal with for the rest of his life.

Sansa responded with a flurry of emojis -- fireworks, cake, clapping hands, hugs, happy dogs, and hearts, with a text tacked onto the end, “You know, because you won’t let us celebrate in person.” A second heart emoji ended the sentence, because as much as she was confused as to why he didn’t want to meet her, she understood if he was a private man and just wanted him to know she was ribbing him a bit.

His response, “Have a glass of wine for us and we’ll call it good,” was followed swiftly by another assurance he would text again when Stranger was allowed home, but that he was going to catch some sleep before his work shift that night.

Sansa stopped at the liquor store on the way home and did exactly what he said.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

A couple months later -- Stranger’s hale and hearty status a welcome reprieve from those first tense few days after the veterinarian visit -- saw Sansa and Sandor discussing the fact that her birthday weekend was coming up. An invitation to participate in whichever capacity Sandor felt capable had already been extended, and declined. It was followed by, “I don’t celebrate birthdays,” to which Sansa stuttered out but forcefully typed into her phone, “NOT EVEN YOUR’S?!”

> Sansa: I don’t believe you.
> 
> Sansa: I CAN’T believe you.
> 
> **Sandor: I don’t. It has never been important to me.**
> 
> Sansa: When is it?
> 
> **Sandor: I’m not going to tell you.**
> 
> Sansa: lol Why not?
> 
> **Sandor: You will want to do something and I’ll have to turn you down again**
> 
> Sansa: Well… that’s obvious.

They were in the midst of what she would call a heated debate, just another in the growing line of his refusals to meet her.

> **Sandor: But I still want you to have a good time at yours. Tell your nephew hello for me.**
> 
> Sansa: Oh, sure, throw a baby into the mix and you know I have to talk about him.
> 
> Sansa: Evil man.
> 
> **Sandor: What is he now, 9 pounds? 10?**
> 
> Sansa: You know full well he’s 14 pounds, seven ounces as of his last doctor visit. And he’s adorable.
> 
> Sansa: He looks like Pod, which is a good thing because there was a reason why we called Arya Horseface when she was a kid (don’t tell her I said that). But even she likes that he looks just like Pod. And she’s so in love with that baby, it warms your heart to see it.
> 
> **Sandor: I’m glad**
> 
> Sansa: Or it would, if you wanted to come to my birthday
> 
> **Sandor: Like a parrot. Always repeating yourself.**
> 
> Sansa: Hey, parrots are geniuses.
> 
> **Sandor: Little bird, then**
> 
> Sansa: Wait, are you now saying I’m not smart?
> 
> **Sandor: You are incorrigible.**
> 
> **Sandor: I imagine you to be more like a dainty songbird than a pelican. Satisfied?**
> 
> Sansa: Oh. Well, that does sound much better.
> 
> **Sandor: Little bird it is, then.**
> 
> Sansa: But the offer still stands.
> 
> **Sandor: And it will keep on standing.**
> 
> Sansa: I only ask over and over and over and over again because I like you.
> 
> **Sandor: I know, Sansa.**
> 
> Sansa: I could say it's insulting that you keep refusing.
> 
> **Sandor: But you won’t because you’re not insulted, just disappointed and too kind to outright say it.**
> 
> Sansa: Ding-ding, we have a winner.
> 
> **Sandor: Happy birthday, Sansa**
> 
> Sansa: Thank you. Happy birthday to you, too. Whenever it is.
> 
> **Sandor: Go to bed.**

Two days later a bouquet of yellow roses was delivered to her at her apartment after work, and she didn’t have to look at the card to know who they were from. They sat on the edge of her kitchen counter where she would see them morning, noon, and night, until they began to wilt. 

When the last one was about to turn she hung it upside down above her kitchen sink in front of the window and watched it as the days went by until it was a perfectly preserved, dried bloom. Then she bought a slender vase and proudly displayed it above her sink, where she would also see it every day.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sandor’s text simply read, “Next Friday. Just thought you would want to know.”

It was three weeks since Sansa’s birthday, and even Sandor thought it was neat that his was just a month after hers. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what prompted him to tell her, but he was certain she was writing down the information and formulating a plan as to how to celebrate it from afar.  _ Silly woman _ , he thought, but deep down he felt the now familiar warmth that spread through his chest when he thought of her.

Sure enough, on the evening of his birthday he was sitting at work, having heard nothing from her about the event all week, staring at his bank of monitors and watching absolutely nothing happen on them, when his phone dinged from beside him on the counter. 

He picked it up, and actually chuckled at what he saw.

Sansa: Just sayin’

Attached was an image of a small kitchen table -- her’s, he figured -- with two place settings. Between them was a single candle burning alongside a vase with a dried rose. Two glasses of wine sat filled and untouched besides plated heaped with a good sized steak, a pile of vegetables, what looked like a loaded baked potato on each, with a small plate of bread on the side. 

It looked amazing, and just seeing it made his mouth water. But at the same time he shook his head, smiling as he typed out a message in the text box below the image.

> **Sandor: Why in Westeros would you do that**
> 
> Sansa: Isn’t it obvious? I had to show you what you’re missing.

Cheeky little bird. Sandor shook his head in amazement that she would do something like that, and ran his hand down his face in exasperation.

> **Sandor: You are definitely unique.**
> 
> Sansa: I prefer “thoughtful”
> 
> **Sandor: That, too.**
> 
> Sansa: Happy birthday, Sandor.
> 
> **Sandor: Thank you, little bird**
> 
> **Sandor: Now what are you going to do with two full plates of food**
> 
> Sansa: Lunch and dinner for the next five days. I’ve thought this through lol
> 
> **Sandor: I can’t believe you**
> 
> Sansa: I just needed to show you that I value your friendship, and that even if you don’t celebrate your birthday, I want you to know someone out there is more than willing to do what it takes to make your day special.
> 
> **Sandor: All I did was send you roses.**
> 
> Sansa: I know. That flower in the middle of the table is the one I kept from that bouquet.
> 
> **Sandor: Okay, now I’m even more surprised.**
> 
> **Sandor: I didn’t expect you to keep them.**
> 
> Sansa: Just one. Didn’t want to be creepy.

He laughed out loud to that, his voice echoing through the empty lobby.

> **Sandor: No, wouldn’t want to be creepy.**
> 
> **Sandor: Again, thank you.**
> 
> Sansa: For not being creepy?
> 
> **Sandor: No, for being you.**
> 
> Sansa: Ah. You’re welcome. I’m good at it, I hear.
> 
> **Sandor: Yes, you are.**
> 
> Sansa: So it’s a good thing you like me just the way I am.
> 
> **Sandor: That I do, little bird. That I do.**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Just a few months later a series of events set off a tipping point in their friendship, though neither of them could have known at the start what was going to happen.

> Sansa: My dad is sick so I’m going to stay there over the weekend and help my mom. 
> 
> **Sandor: Everything okay?**
> 
> Sansa: Yeah, they’re pretty sure he has the flu. But Arya and Pod can’t be there because they don’t want the baby to get sick, Robb lives too far away, Rickon is useless and Bran is at college. I know Jon would help if he was here, but Theon is worse than Rickon, so that leaves me. 
> 
> Sansa: I’m happy to do it, though. Mom needs a break.
> 
> **Sandor: Let me know if you need anything**
> 
> Sansa: And if I say I need coffee and thirty minutes to sit down with a friend?
> 
> **Sandor: Go brew a pot and we’ll text for thirty minutes**
> 
> Sansa: Stubborn man lol. I’ll be fine.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: Dad’s flu is awful, but neither mom nor I are getting sick
> 
> **Sandor: That’s good**
> 
> Sansa: She’s just tired. Spends every minute with him through the week, but I’ve been coming over on weeknights for a couple hours. I think it helps her out. She’s exhausted.
> 
> **Sandor: Take care of yourself, too, little bird**
> 
> Sansa: I will, I promise

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: Taking mom and dad to the hospital, he’s not getting any better
> 
> **Sandor: It’s been two weeks. That’s probably best**
> 
> Sansa: I’m worried
> 
> Sansa: He’s so pale, and he has lost a lot of weight
> 
> **Sandor: Probably should have gone to the hospital sooner.**
> 
> Sansa: I agree, but you know men. Stubborn.
> 
> **Sandor: It’s on all of our birth certificates, didn’t you know?**
> 
> Sansa: lol Thank you, Sandor, for being my friend, and for making me laugh.
> 
> **Sandor: Any time, little bird.**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: They think he has pancreatitis, but we’re getting a second opinion.
> 
> **Sandor: What’s the treatment for pancreatitis?**
> 
> Sansa: Normally surgery, and then a full recovery.
> 
> **Sandor: That’s good, right?**
> 
> Sansa: It is, but even the doctor sounded unsure of his diagnosis.
> 
> **Sandor: Hence the second opinion**
> 
> Sansa: Yes. So I’m still worried.
> 
> **Sandor: There’s no better place for him to be, little bird**
> 
> Sansa: I know that. Deep down I do. But I’m still worried. I love him so much.
> 
> **Sandor: He knows this, and that’s what is important. Be strong for him**
> 
> Sansa: I’m trying, Sandor.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: We got the second opinion. I took the rest of the week off from work so I can be here. The doctors are saying it might be heart failure. 
> 
> **Sandor: I’m sorry, Sansa**
> 
> Sansa: It’s okay. Really. They tell us there are treatments, medicine regimens. 
> 
> **Sandor: What caused it?**
> 
> Sansa: He just got sick, which we knew, but it formed an infection that went to his heart. They’re saying it aggravated a condition already present, and that if he had gone to the hospital sooner the outcome might not have been so bad.
> 
> **Sandor: Stubborn man.**
> 
> Sansa: I agree. Stubbornness is usually, definitely, not a virtue.
> 
> **Sandor: Point taken, little bird.**
> 
> Sansa: I just need some time to process this. He’s going in for a heart cath today so we’ll know more in a few hours.
> 
> **Sandor: Keep me posted.**
> 
> Sansa: I will.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> **Sandor: How is he doing, Sansa? I haven’t heard from you all day**
> 
> **Sandor: Sansa?**
> 
> **Sandor: I’m here, little bird. If you need me.**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: Sandor, I need you. He’s dying and going in for emergency surgery. Please come
> 
> **Sandor: I’m on my way**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa texted him the hospital they were at, and the room number that would belong to Ned in the intensive care unit, outside which there was a waiting room where Sansa and her family would be. 

His heart was pounding. He was about to meet her, and her entire family, under circumstances he never would have imagined. 

Hell,  _ any _ circumstance was a circumstance he never imagined they would meet in, since he was determined to keep their friendship localized to text messages. But it appeared fate was giving him an opportunity to either be a monster and ignore her plea, or to step up, set aside his cowardly ways, and go to her.

So he swallowed his pride, made sure Stranger had plenty of food and water for several hours, and grabbed a brush on his way out the door.

The drive to the hospital across town took only twenty minutes, but to Sandor it felt like he was driving through quicksand. It seemed as though he did enough thinking in those twenty minutes for an entire year -- a year of worrying what Sansa would think, of worrying that this would end their friendship, of worrying that he wouldn’t measure up to any expectations she might have.

It had nothing to do with his perception of her. To him, she was sweet and kind and funny, and damn near perfect for someone he had never seen. She was thoughtful and caring, said the right things at the right time, bugged him about his reclusiveness, teased him about his stubbornness, and still never turned her proverbial back on him.

This was something he didn’t want to screw up. 

So at a red light he yanked the brush through his hair, carefully pulling just some of it over the side of his face that bore the burn scars inflicted by his brother in childhood, and ran the bristles through his beard and mustache in an attempt to look presentable.

There was nothing he could do for the faded t-shirt and jeans that he liked to wear when he got off work. At least the black t-shirt didn’t show just exactly how much Stranger hair he was covered in. Plus it was likely Sansa wouldn’t care, knowing she had a husky who probably matched Stranger in shedding.  _ What a pair they would make _ , he thought.

Pounding. He wondered if his heart might just stop from the anxiety and adrenaline he could feel coursing through the hard working organ. When he pulled into the parking spot at the hospital he put his hand on his chest and could feel the overly strong pulse of it through the thick wall of his chest.

There was nothing left to do. He turned the truck off and stepped out, sliding the key into his pocket after making sure the door was locked. 

Then he began the trek to the front doors, aware that this could be the biggest mistake he had ever made.

_ Don’t fuck this up _ , he chanted inwardly as he turned towards the bank of elevators, noting the floor he would need to ride up to in order to reach the ICU. 

_ Don’t fuck this up _ . The ding of the carriage arriving startled him, and he wished he could simply sit on one of the chairs behind him and text her; even pictured himself doing just that and imagining the far fetched thought that she would be totally fine with it.

_ Don’t fuck this up _ , was the thought that banished the idea. To text her and not go to her would surely fuck  _ everything _ up.

Stepping onto the elevator was like sealing his fate, and he rubbed clammy hands down his hips, trying to rid them of the wetness.

One. Two. Three. Just before the fourth floor he tucked the hair on his good side behind his ear, and then untucked it like an idiot. He was nervous, and wished he had a paper bag to breathe into. 

The door opened, he held his breath, but saw on the other side nothing but a long empty hallway. What was it that walk was called, when one was taking the last few steps towards the execution of their death penalty? The green mile? Surely this is what that felt like.

Sandor tried to focus on his mission -- to ease Sansa’s pain, to support her in her worry for her father, and to be the friend she said he was to her.

But thoughts of ruination swarmed his mind, dread swamping his heart as he pondered whether this was going to be the end of the only good thing that had happened to him in his life over the last few years. 

_ Damn the scars _ , he thought viciously, angry all over again at his brother, at life, at fate.  _ Damn them to the seven hells _ .

His careful footfalls echoed anyway in the empty corridor, his boots landing with dull thuds as he came to a corner. 

He turned it, and saw a group of people in an impromptu waiting area at the center of another long hallway. His eyes scanned even as his feet brought him closer to the group.

A tall man with auburn hair turned to him, a darker skinned woman at his side eyeing him curiously -- Robb and his wife. There was also a young man in a wheelchair -- Bran, he knew -- and an even younger one who barely glanced up at him before going back to his phone. Rickon.

A shorter, brown haired woman who held a baby stood next to a man just a few inches taller than her. Arya and Podrick, and their baby.

A woman with long, dark red hair stood with her back to him, though not an exceptionally tall woman, and when the murmurs around her stopped she turned, making Sandor’s breath catch in his throat. Everyone was looking at him as she turned, her worried eyes wrinkled at the corners, laugh lines deep beside her mouth.

Not Sansa, he decided immediately, though her eyes went quickly from worry to suspicion as she took in the newcomer. 

It was now or never. He cleared his throat, just as another head popped out from behind the older woman, this one with bright copper hair and piercing blue eyes he could see even from this distance.

_ Her _ .

Fucking hells, he wanted to die. She was stunning.

She leaned out from behind the older woman, still seated until she spoke his name quietly, phrased it as a question as he had known she would.

“Sandor?”

He watched her face, her eyes, as they trailed from his own down his body, all the way to his boots and back up, stopping briefly at where his fists clenched and released twice at his sides; nerves that he wasn’t quite able to hide. It must have been enough for her, the sign she needed to know it was him, because suddenly she stood -- and she  _ was _ tall -- and rushed towards him, eyes already shimmering with tears. 

She looked at him as she approached, her eyes trained on his until she breathed his name once more and slid her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

"

The amount of revelations that stampeded through Sansa’s mind in the span of just a few seconds, preceded by Sandor’s arrival and the sheer magnitude of his presence, both soothed Sansa’s nerves and made her heart feel like it was near bursting.

_ He came _ , she thought, heedless of how inappropriate it was for her to be wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing against him desperately.

It surprised her, as it likely did everyone else in the hallway including him, that she felt the need to draw comfort from him in such a manner when it was her blood family standing behind them, probably looking on in shock. After all, they didn’t know Sandor.  _ She _ didn’t really know Sandor. And yet, she  _ did _ \-- maybe better than anyone else. 

He had opened up to her, had become her friend, had welcomed her into his head and his heart, if not his physical life. 

But he was here. He came when she needed him to, and it was the balm to her aching soul she hadn’t known she deeply needed.

After a few moments clarity began to filter through and for once she ignored her family’s presence; instead focusing on the feel of the man who was just now returning the embrace. Impossibly long arms wrapped around her, coming to rest at her back and waist as he offered her his tentative brand of comfort.

She should have expected it; should have expected that when she turned her face to press her ear to his chest that the thud of his heart would reverberate through the thick muscle beneath her cheek, the heavy staccato nearly enough to register as seismic activity.

He was nervous, and here she was draped over him, listening to how he was barely breathing while she was selfishly taking comfort that he was only just barely offering.

Suddenly more self aware than she wanted to be, she decided to back off but when she moved to break away entirely she turned her hand,  _ just enough _ \-- and he took the bait. As she looked up into his deep gray eyes that were swirling with worry and indecision, she felt his warm hand wrap around hers like a mit; all encompassing, protective.

_ Long, dark brown hair _ , she noted as she heard a voice behind her. Her mother’s.

“Sansa…”

_ Tall; taller even than Robb, than anyone I’ve ever met _ . 

“Are you going to introduce us to your… friend?”

Sansa blinked, though her eyes remained closed a beat longer than necessary in an effort to refocus on the fact that her mother wasn’t really intending to be rude. She was just tired, and worried, same as all the Starks.

When she reopened them she looked up into those same gray eyes and saw the same worry and indecision. 

With a small smile she turned, standing just in front of him, instinctively protecting him from the barbs her mother might send his way as she made introductions.

“This is Sandor Clegane, a friend of mine.” Closing the distance now between them and her family, she was gratified that Sandor followed her without question. When they stopped she stood beside him, squeezing his hand almost imperceptibly in a bid to strengthen his resolve to be out in public. She knew he must have been nervous, meeting not only her but the majority of her family all in one fell swoop.

“Sandor, this is my oldest brother Robb and his wife Talisa--” Sandor released her hand then, as though social etiquette was something he was indeed capable of, and offered it to Robb, who reached out to shake in return, “-- and Bran and Rickon--” both of whom shook his large hand. Rickon’s eyes widened slightly at the size difference, but Bran merely looked at Sandor as he did every new person he met -- with poorly disguised interest and that burning desire to pick his brain and learn his life story.

“And this is my sister Arya and her boyfriend Podrick, and their baby, Erik.”

Sandor merely nodded at Arya, who -- if judging by the way her hands didn’t move from where they cradled Erik to her chest, likely wouldn’t have shaken his hand anyway -- simply nodded back, her lips pressed firmly together. Podrick on the other hand, who at times seemed an incredible blessing to Sansa’s large family, smiled broadly and shook Sandor’s hand.

“Congratulations,” Sandor spoke to both Arya and Podrick, and Sansa felt the hairs go up on the back of her neck. It was the first word he had spoken, and it was deep and rich and raspy, unexpectedly slithering up her spine like a serpent finding its place amongst the branches. 

Coughing to cover up her reaction, she finally turned to her mother and made introductions.

“Mom, this is Sandor. Sandor, this is my mother, Catelyn Stark.”

Catelyn reached out first, and Sansa was pretty sure one of the many visible waves of tension radiating off of Sandor slid down and melted into the floor. He relaxed by a small measure, reaching out to gently shake her hand.

“Mrs. Stark,” he said in greeting, giving her a quick nod as well. 

Sansa nearly smiled. His show of deference for the person who was the obvious matriarch of the Stark family was touching, and that he offered no empty platitudes about Sansa’s father was another point in his favor. He was obviously a man of few words, especially in person, and in this case it was the right way to be.

Catelyn, though, turned to Sansa, one eyebrow slightly raised in question and the obvious unsaid statement, “We are going to talk later.” Sansa fought to not roll her own eyes, aware that she was doing her best to make her own good impression on Sandor.

When she realized that they had once again reached for each other’s hands at the same time, her heart soared. His warm, slightly damp hand clasped hers as she entwined her fingers through his much larger ones, a detail that did not go unnoticed by her mother.

“Thank you for coming, Sandor. Tell me, how long have you known my daughter?”

“Mom--” Sansa started, aware that with her father gone for the moment, Catelyn would deliver an inquisition that rivalled a medieval interrogation if not put in cheque.

“Going on a year and a half, Mrs. Stark.”

This surprised her, as she turned to Sansa with eyes slightly widened. She was the spitting image of Rickon in that moment, and Sansa nearly laughed.

Figuring it was time to have Sandor to herself, she looked at every family member in turn, almost able to visualize her own interrogation that would soon be happening.

“I’m going to go get coffee. Sandor,” she said, looking up to him. “Would you come with me?”

He looked down at her, the expression on his face one that questioned whether she was indeed real. Smiling encouragingly, Sansa felt nothing but warmth for the man she had come to know through first letters and then text messages over the period of time he had previously stated.

Then he nodded, no sign of a smile beneath his thick mustache and beard, but Sansa figured they would take it one step at a time. She still needed time to figure out the emotions that were swirling around inside her own heart, let alone attempting to decipher his.

After orders for coffee were given by her family, she turned him by the hand and began walking down the long hallway from where he had come.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sandor didn’t know why he held her hand. Part of him felt like he was six years old, holding his mom’s hand inside a new, scary building, while the other part thought he had never felt anything so sweet as the feel of her warm skin wrapped inside his.

_ This is dangerous _ , he thought, not for the first time.  _ I never should have come _ .

But seeing her smile up at him, seeing how her eyes sometimes trailed over his scars beneath the hair hanging in his face and how they always returned to his, smiling -- he was having trouble remembering the reasons for his second thoughts.

They ordered two coffees from the cafeteria, his black and hers some oversweet frothy mocha concoction, and then found a table in the back of the large room. It fit four people but they both sat against the wall, facing each other.

“So…” she said, and he wondered if  _ adorable _ was an appropriate word for her smile. 

So far everything about her far exceeded his expectations. She was, as he had surmised before, absolutely stunning. Her hair fell long and straight around her shoulders, so bright that he thought in full sunlight it might be blindingly red. And her eyes were a startling blue that made him think she could figure out all his secrets with merely a glance in his direction. Perhaps that’s why he did his best to avoid her gaze, staring instead at the top of his coffee cup.

Or perhaps it was that part of him was still waiting for the inevitable rejection, although none seemed to be forthcoming. Odd, that. He was confused, and wondered at the enigma that was Sansa Stark.

“Thank you for coming,” she said then, drawing his gaze up to hers. That small smile was still on her soft lips, the smile that said she was indeed grateful for his presence. It was the only thing that made him feel good about coming -- her genuine appreciation. It was written all over her beautiful face.

“You said you needed me,” he stated, lifting his coffee to take a sip. It was harsh and strong, just the way he liked it.

Sansa smiled wider, her eyes lowering to the table as she chuckled.

“Yes, I needed you so I asked for you. And yet when you needed me you didn’t ask for me.”

When her eyes met his once again, there was a question there, a question he didn’t want to address. But she was pressing, and he wanted to please her. For some strange reason he desperately wanted to please her.

“I didn’t need you,” he began, and she made the sound she often texted when she was telling him he was full of shit.

“Pfft. Stranger was dying, and you could have used a friend.”

“I had one,” he tried, and she shook her head at his response as though it came from a child.

But then she paused, surprising him when she didn’t further that line of conversation. Instead she veered off the path and went straight to territory he wasn’t sure he wanted to explore.

With a soft voice she queried, “Why didn’t you tell me, Sandor?”

He knew what she referred to. Keeping his eyes down, he inhaled deeply, exhaling through his nose as though taking the time to do so would allow her question to die a quick death between them. 

“It’s been a year and a half, just as you said.” She spoke quietly, but when her hand snaked across the table, an olive branch seeking out his troubled past, he felt powerless against its pull. With his own hand he met hers, allowing her to slip her palm into his as he curled his fingers around her warm skin. For some reason it was beginning to feel like that’s where her hand belonged, and it scared him to even think that thought, to know it existed within his head.

He knew what she was saying -- a lot of talk had occurred between them over the last year and a half, and none of it had to do with disfigurement or scars, or the reasons that he always hinted at for which he maintained his status of hermit. 

And now, faced with this beautiful woman who wanted to learn all his secrets, he struggled with a crippling insecurity and the knowledge that to keep her in his life, this was something he wouldn’t be able to hide from her forever. But… just a few more moments. Just a little while longer. He wanted to beg her, to plead with her not to push him, so instead he looked up into her eyes and changed the subject.

“Tell me about your father.”

She rolled her eyes, and he almost smiled. With nearly every sentence she was proving to him she was the exact person she projected of herself in her letters and her texting. That eye rolling emoji was obviously a favorite of hers, both in text and in real life.

Her face sobered mostly at the subject, but he was sure even she knew that this would have to come out at some point. After all, this was the reason why he was here.

Mirroring her gesture from earlier, he gave her hand a squeeze, at which she directed a small, grateful smile in his direction.

“It’s congestive heart failure, so what the doctors are doing right now is a bypass, which will help with his heart’s pumping function, and a pacemaker and defibrillator, which is what is supposed to prevent sudden death.”

The severity surprised him, but she had told him her dad was dying, so perhaps this was the only way to prevent it.

“Sounds like a long recovery,” he said, and she nodded, her hair sliding in front of her shoulder. 

“Six months at least, though my parents insurance will provide for a limited in-home nurse several days a week, at least for the first few weeks.” She smiled up at him again, those blue eyes connecting with his. “So I’m grateful for that. But afterwards it will be up to us, and up to my mom to convince him to completely change his diet.”

Wanting to see her smile again, he asked, “I don’t suppose you make him steaks for his birthday, as well?”

She laughed, nodding, her eyes rueful.

“In fact, I do. I seem to have a knack for steaks.”

When she looked up at him her smile was impish. Surprised that she was still finding humor in the midst of this dire situation, Sandor cracked his first smile since arriving at the hospital. Shaking his head, he saw her own smile broaden before he dropped his gaze back to the table.

“How  _ was _ the one you cooked for my birthday?”

Her smile was so genuine, so grateful for the happy change in topic, that he was powerless to do anything other than smile back.

“It was fantastic. You really missed out.”

The look in her eyes was downright mischievous, and he knew exactly where this was going.

“I don’t suppose you’ll make this a yearly thing?”

Mock outrage was her next expression, and she shook her head. 

“From now on I only cook for people who actually come by for dinner. No more phantom birthday dates for you.”

Chuckling, and ignoring that she used the term  _ date _ to describe her making a steak for him, Sandor sobered. 

She wanted to continue the friendship, that was obvious. But he also knew she wanted her previous question answered. 

They continued talking, and as their quick coffee break turned into an hour, they finally decided it was time to order her family’s coffees and to deliver them. They were standing in line with a handful of other customers, each of them holding a drink holder with several coffees in them, when Sansa nudged him with her shoulder. Pulled from his thoughts, Sandor looked down at her upturned face.

“Thank you for coming,” she said softly, quietly enough that only he could hear amidst the bustling sounds of a busy hospital cafeteria.

But that look in her eyes -- it spoke volumes; volumes Sandor couldn’t help but feel he might be misinterpreting. 

So he spoke from the heart, knowing as he did that his words were nothing but truth.

“I wouldn’t have done anything else, little bird.”

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> **Sandor: How is Ned doing?**
> 
> Sansa: His recovery will be long, but he says he already notices a difference.
> 
> **Sandor: So they’ve taken out his breathing tube?**
> 
> Sansa: Yes, they say patients usually don’t go more than 24 hours with it in after surgery. And he’s in an ICU room just for a few days for monitoring. He’ll move to a recovery room soon, and after that we will bring him home.
> 
> **Sandor: When do you return to work?**
> 
> Sansa: Tomorrow, actually. I only had so much vacation time, but with all of my siblings pitching in and that in home nurse, I was able to use just a week of it. 
> 
> Sansa: He’s doing so much better, I feel comfortable going back.
> 
> **Sandor: I wasn’t going to say anything.**
> 
> Sansa: I know you wouldn’t… But other people might. It’s just different when you’re from a big family. Enough people hovering around his bed and we would just be in the way. Recovering from bypass surgery isn’t the most dignified recovery, if you know what I mean.
> 
> **Sandor: I can imagine.**
> 
> Sansa: However
> 
> **Sandor: ?**
> 
> Sansa: My schedule is free all this afternoon and tonight
> 
> **Sandor: Well, isn’t that something.**
> 
> Sansa: lol We’ve met, had coffee, talked, and talked some more. I think it’s time.
> 
> **Sandor: Time for…?**
> 
> Sansa: Stranger and Lady to meet. Pfft. What did you think I was going to say?
> 
> **Sandor: You make me laugh, little bird**
> 
> Sansa: It’s about time someone did.
> 
> **Sandor: So, those university trails. Think two old men like Stranger and I could manage a hike?**

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Sansa couldn’t help herself. She wore a pair of denim shorts that reached just mid-thigh, and a rust colored tank top that spoke of life being good on the front. Pulling her hair into a ponytail and adding mascara to her look, she inspected herself in front of her full length mirror on the closet door, eyeing Lady off to the side. 

“What do you think?” she asked the canine, pretending the sardonic look Lady gave her was one of approval instead. And she did have her own approval, which was necessary but still second in her mind to the one that really counted -- Sandor’s. 

Hiking boots and a small backpack with granola bars, water bottles, dog treats and a bowl for Lady completed the outfit, and they headed out in her hatchback, winding through the back country roads until they entered the university campus and parked at the foot of the trail.

There were a handful of cars and trucks already parked, seeing as how Sunday was a busy day for hikers to take advantage of good weather. 

After a moment, Sansa watched in her rearview mirror as the door to a tall, red truck opened and legs as thick as tree trunks stepped out.

_ Sandor _ , she thought, smiling to herself.

Climbing out, she tried not to smile at the memory of his readily accepted invitation to go on a hike, just the four of them. Try as she might, she couldn’t tamp down the hope that was building up in her chest.

She liked him. No, she more than liked him. He was important to her, like a part of her she hadn’t known she was missing until he showed up in the hospital corridor all those days ago. The sight of him, the knowledge that it was indeed him, had warmed her heart and lifted her soul on that harsh day. 

Just as it did now, in fact. She waved fondly across the parking lot as he opened the back door of the cab, casting a wave in her direction before being nearly knocked over by the black furball that dropped out of the cab.

_ Stranger _ , she thought gleefully, excitement coloring her thoughts at finally meeting the most important person in Sandor’s life.

She watched as he quickly attached a wide black leash to the collar hidden within the mass of fur around the big dog’s neck, and then again as he shut the doors, an old faded backpack slung over one wide shoulder.

Lady was going nuts inside the car, having already seen the newcomers and obviously dying to meet them. Laughing, Sansa barely managed to get the leash on before the husky bounded out of the back seat, her run ending abruptly when Sansa braced herself for the impact of the end of the leash.

“Lady, come,” she tried, but the husky was focused on the two dark and intimidating characters walking her way.

Rolling her eyes, Sansa reached back and swung the doors of her car shut, clicking the lock button in her pocket and walking away once the bell sounded saying her vehicle was secure.

“Hello,” she said as Sandor approached, holding Stranger’s leash close to the collar so the big dog and Lady could get to know each other slowly. 

Sandor smiled, his lips turning up just barely beneath the edge of his mustache, but it was enough that Sansa recognized that as genuine pleasure. He was happy to see her.

“Hello,” he replied, and something passed between them as their dogs greeted each other at their feet. Something like… an awareness; a connection, as trite as it sounded even to her. He was happy to see her, she was happy to see him -- this was going to be a great day.

“The hermit emerges,” she teased, and together they fell in step as they walked the mingling dogs towards the trail head. Sandor chuckled, his deep voice giving her goosebumps. When he looked down at her again it was with something new in his eyes, something she desperately wanted to see was an attraction that matched her own.

“Takes the right motivation, I suppose,” he said softly, almost shyly, and then looked away as he allowed her to enter the trail system ahead of him.

They chose the two-mile trail, and before long it became apparent that while Sandor may have been ten years older than her, he was by no means in inferior shape. It took Sansa faster strides than normal to keep up with his long legs. The dogs had a great time, constantly moving away from each other only to come back together, sniffing and acting as though meeting each other had been the greatest moment in their entire lives.

Sansa was happy to see Stranger healthy, but in the back of her mind sat the conversation she had attempted with Sandor days ago in the hospital. It steadily pushed back at all other thoughts until they were at the summit of the small hill, the halfway point of their hike.

Thanks to an unfortunate day when Lady had slipped off the leash and Sansa had had to go hunt her down, she also knew that a short ways off the trail down the side of the hill was a small copse of trees, on the other side of which sat a fallen log. When she mentioned break time to Sandor he agreed, and together they led their dogs off the trail to this small viewpoint that obviously had few visitors.

After tying the dogs to a tree with a bowl of water to share and enough shade for both of them, Sandor and Sansa sat on the log admiring the view.

But Sansa couldn’t stay quiet for long. After just a minute she angled her body towards his, allowing her knee to come into contact with his long thigh, and smiled gently at him.

His answering groan and averted gaze told her he knew what it was she wanted to talk about.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

“There’s nothing pleasant about this story,” he began, looking out over the university campus at the base of the hill and the cityscape beyond. A warm hand slid into his but he didn’t look down, merely kept his eyes on the horizon as he began speaking.

It was over in mere minutes, having recounted the horror that was his brother and how his sister died under suspicious circumstances; the early death of his mother and how his father obscured the truth to make it appear as though Sandor’s brother wasn’t at fault.

The retelling was swift but painful, ending with Sandor clenching his jaw, remembering the pain of the burn and how afterwards his father had replaced the wood stove. No one wanted the smashed face print permanently etched on the side of the cast iron wood stove to remember the atrocity that had occured that day. 

Least of all him, who did everything he could over the years to rid himself of all memories of that day. He was glad when they began disappearing on their own -- first his brother, and then his father dying. Even the demolition of the old house was a bittersweet sight after so many years of nightmares.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” Sansa asked, and when she sniffled he looked back at her, dismayed to see tears in her eyes.

“Don’t cry for me,” he pleaded, unprepared for the sight of tears when for so long he had expected disgust.

“I’ll cry for whomever I damn well please,” she said, her watery smile accompanying a gentle shove to his shoulder. “And right now that’s you, stubborn man. Now tell me, why didn’t you want me to know?” She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head in confusion. “Why hide from me?”

Sandor sighed, knowing there was more pain yet to come, but also knowing he would never tell her anything other than the truth.

“For decades I’ve been a monster -- scaring children, intimidating women, provoking men to be wary of me simply for my size. I didn’t want…”

He paused, unable to completely form his thoughts into words. Sansa remained silent, patiently waiting for him to explain.

“When you initially wrote to me,” he said softly, looking down at their entwined hands, “I wanted you to go away. To disappear.” Looking up at her, he saw understanding, knowing that he had told her just as much in those first few letters. “And when you remained persistent, and began texting, it sort of… snowballed.”

“Into friendship,” she offered, nodding, and he nodded back in agreement.

“Yes, friendship. And you made me--”

Sandor abruptly stopped talking, realizing he had never laid himself this bare before, in front of anyone. To put off the inevitable he let go of her hand and rose, pouring the rest of his water bottle into the bowl for the dogs.

When he returned he sat back on the log and Sansa moved closer, so that her thigh was pressed up against his. Again, she took his hand in hers but this time held it between both, resting on her leg.

After a minute, Sandor continued.

“I never wanted friends. I never thought a point would come in my life when I found out I was missing something. But you…” This was harder than he thought. 

“You make me feel like I was missing something,” she offered quietly, and surprised, Sandor looked down at her. The smile on her face was sweet, understanding. He nodded once as she went on.

“I think I knew while we were still texting, but then I saw you, and I hugged you, and… Then I held your hand.” She quieted, looking down at his hand, turning it over in hers so she could trace the lines on his palm.

“Sandor,” she said softly, not looking up, “I think we’re more than friends. I think…”

When her gaze returned to his that time, it was with emotions shining like a lighthouse, signalling his return home. She had become a beacon in the night and it had taken him a long time to realize it. 

Was it possible to fall in love through letters? Through texts? Was it possible that he was in love at all?

“I don’t mind,” he whispered, both answering his own silent questions and responding to her last statement. Her smile broadened, her eyes shimmering once again.

“I think… we should give this a try. Because I really like you, Sandor. A lot.” She blushed, ducking her face for a moment to press her forehead against his shoulder. 

When she lifted it again, he didn’t think it was possible for her to smile any wider. He rolled his eyes when she spoke next, figuring he should have expected nothing less than from her.

“Would you meet me at the flagpole at lunch so I can kiss you?”

Sandor didn’t know whether to laugh or give in to the nervousness that threatened to close his throat and end this amazing moment once and for all.

So instead he settled for lifting his other hand, watching as she closed her eyes and, smiling, rested her cheek into his palm.

“I can’t,” he whispered, shocking wide eyes from her as her lips parted in surprise. But then he began, “Mrs. Stark gave me detention--”

His words were cut off when she pressed her lips to his.

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

> Sansa: You should have told me
> 
> **Sandor: I wanted it to be a surprise**
> 
> Sansa: That wasn’t fair. I don’t have a surprise for you.
> 
> **Sandor: I don't need one, little bird.**
> 
> **Sandor: It’s enough that I know you’re enjoying it.**
> 
> Sansa: Moving in with you was the best decision I ever made.
> 
> **Sandor: Pfft.**
> 
> **Sandor: No, answering my stupid message in a bottle was.**
> 
> Sansa: Hey, it wasn’t stupid. We’ll show that same exact bottle and letter to our grandkids someday.
> 
> **Sandor: Grandkids? Gods, woman. We haven’t even spoken about kids yet.**
> 
> **Sandor: Are you trying to kill me?**
> 
> Sansa: Of course we talked about kids, don’t you remember?
> 
> **Sandor: I remember nothing. You have addled my brain.**
> 
> Sansa: That’s nice to know, but I’m serious. You asked me, oh, I don’t know. A year and a half ago? Two years? If I would want a boy or a girl.
> 
> **Sandor: Oh**
> 
> **Sandor: OH**
> 
> **Sandor: I do remember**
> 
> Sansa: What did I say?
> 
> **Sandor: You said you wanted a girl with red hair and blue eyes.**
> 
> Sansa: And what did YOU say?
> 
> **Sandor: I said a girl who looks just like her mother**
> 
> Sansa: And why did you say that?
> 
> **Sandor: Your honor, I object. Leading the witness.**
> 
> Sansa: Just answer the question, Sandor. Stubborn man.
> 
> **Sandor: I said I would want a girl who looked just like her mother.**
> 
> Sansa: But you never told me WHY
> 
> **Sandor: My WHY was that you had told me you had red hair and blue eyes, so I decided a girl with red hair and blue eyes would be nice.**
> 
> Sansa: Did you know you loved me back then?
> 
> **Sandor: Sansa, I think I loved you a little bit from your second annoying letter.**
> 
> Sansa: lol Stop. 
> 
> Sansa: I’m not sure when I fell in love with you, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anywhere around the time you told me you didn’t want kids.
> 
> **Sandor: See how easily you changed my mind?**
> 
> Sansa: So now you DO want kids?
> 
> **Sandor: Only if they have red hair and blue eyes. Plenty of Clegane genes in the world, we don’t need any more.**
> 
> Sansa: I hear your phone dinging on the other side of the door.
> 
> **Sandor: …**
> 
> **Sandor: Guilty as charged.**
> 
> Sansa: You watch too many cop shows.
> 
> **Sandor: I’m investigating a case.**
> 
> Sansa: What case is that?
> 
> **Sandor: What’s under those bubbles.**
> 
> Sansa: You know full well what’s under these bubbles.
> 
> **Sandor: Security Officer Clegane does not.**
> 
> Sansa: Perhaps Security Officer Clegane should come investigate. He can leave Lady alone. Those puppies likely won’t get here for another few hours.
> 
> **Sandor: Plus she has Stranger to assist the delivery...**
> 
> Sansa: lol Oh, that shepard cad who is even now sleeping on the foot of our bed, snoozing while the woman does all the work? That Stranger?
> 
> **Sandor: I plead the fifth.**
> 
> Sansa: Get rid of the uniform and get in here. I want to show you what’s beneath all these bubbles.
> 
> Sansa: I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you had a whirlpool tub installed.
> 
> **Sandor: Just for you, little bird. Only for you.**
> 
> Sansa: You hush. You know full well this tub fits both of us.
> 
> **Sandor: An unexpected bonus.**
> 
> Sansa: Unexpected, my butt. Get in here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who stuck with this to the end! I'm glad you guys enjoyed it so much <3 Makes my heart sing with joy that people like my writing.
> 
> Just a note: Ned's journey with heart failure mirrors the journey I traveled with my husband when he was initially diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure 13 years ago. My public service announcement is this: Please, if you or someone you know has flu-like symptoms and are not getting better, do NOT hesitate to get a second or third opinion! We heard Pancreatitis, and then gall bladder disease, weeks before someone had the smart idea of giving him a chest x-ray. Ridiculous. His heart was twice the size of a normal heart and no one caught it.
> 
> What seemed like the flu turned out to be a diagnosis after which Quality Of Life was discussed. It was horrible, and largely could have been avoided had my husband a) gone in to the doctor when I told him to, and b) gone to the right doctor who knew what they were talking about and were able to recognize the symptoms.
> 
> Don't hesitate. Your life could be on the line!
> 
> Love to you all <3


End file.
